


In Tender Embassy

by Ozalina



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Hand Jobs, Infidelity, M/M, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:42:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24149905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ozalina/pseuds/Ozalina
Summary: “I kinda accidentally proposed to Winry.”“Accidentally? That’s impressive, even for you.”Ed shows up on Roy's doorstep in the middle of the night.
Relationships: Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Comments: 9
Kudos: 154





	In Tender Embassy

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to be a short thing where Ed showed up on Roy’s doorstep for a bit of “before-I-get-married” sex, but then they just kept talking and talking. Oops. Also I haven’t written sex in about a decade, so sorry about that.

Roy leads Edward into the living room. He can’t think of where else to take him; there’s nowhere to sit in the kitchen besides high, uncomfortable stools, sitting in the study would make this evening feel like they’ve travelled back in time to being colonel and subordinate again, and he thinks that Ed might lose concentration altogether if they go into the library.

Ed seems preoccupied. Roy hadn’t even realised either of the Elrics were back in town. The last he’d heard, they’d both been travelling through other countries, at least according to the postcards Gracia received and read to him at regular intervals. But Ed had shown up just as Roy was pouring himself a last drink before attempting to sleep, leaning on the doorframe and nodding towards the tumbler in Roy’s hand.

When he’d asked if Roy was OK to give him a drink and a bed for the night, Roy had been so surprised that he hadn’t thought about doing anything other than nodding and inviting Ed inside.

“So, Fullmetal,” Roy says. He looks around the living room quickly, and then decides that maybe lighting a fire in the grate would be the best plan. It would be a waste if he was the only one around to appreciate it, but with Ed around, perhaps it will make the world feel more homey. If nothing else, maybe Ed will start sniping at him about pyromania, and then they can bicker like old times, and Roy will be on firmer footing. He bends down, slips on a glove and clicks. “What brings you to my door?”

“A, I’m not Fullmetal anymore,” Ed says, and the words should be snappy and short-tempered, but instead he just sounds tired. “And B, why are you using your gloves? You don’t need the transmutation circle. There have to be some plus points to all that shit we went through, right?”

Roy hums in agreement, and pushes himself upright, wincing as his knees don’t so much click as grind. “Force of habit. You wanted a drink?”

Ed nods. “Whiskey. That’s what you’re drinking, right?” At Roy’s answering nod, Ed sighs and shuffles his feet. He’s still loitering in the doorway of the room, eyes darting around as if he’s intruding. “Straight up will be fine. You probably only drink the good shit, so no need to hide the taste.”

“I do try.” Roy waves a hand at Ed as he crosses the room to his small alcohol cabinet. “Sit down. You’re making the place look untidy.” Ed lets out a little huff of laughter, and flops down onto the sofa in front of the fire. “You still haven’t answered my question, by the way. Not that I’m not honoured to be graced with your company, but is there any particular reason for your visit?”

Roy’s only half watching out of the corner of his eye, but he’s had enough experience of Ed’s sulking tones to know that Ed’s grimacing as he slumps further down into the cushions. “I kinda accidentally proposed to Winry.”

Roy raises an eyebrow and reassesses the amount of whiskey he was going to give Ed. Maybe a double measure is called for. Sounds like this could be a late night and a hangover tomorrow morning. “Accidentally? That’s impressive, even for you.”

Ed scowls as he takes the glass Roy offers him. He uses his right hand, Roy notices. It’s strange, just because he’s used to Ed contorting himself to use the left in any situation that might need a degree of delicacy. “Fuck off, bastard. And sit down. I’m not gonna do this squinting up at you.”

Roy opens his mouth to make the requisite short joke, and then thinks better of it. If Ed’s decided that Roy’s his best bet to deal with this crisis, then the least Roy can do in return is listen without being antagonistic. So he lowers himself into the armchair he keeps by the side of the fire, close enough that he can keep it stoked, far enough that Ed won’t feel crowded, and at just the right angle to see Ed’s face.

“I said some stupid shit right before I went travelling. Didn’t really think too much more about it, but then I came back to Resembool and apparently she’s not thought about much else.” Ed sighs, shifts, shrugs in Roy’s general direction. “I don’t mean she’s been planning shit, making a white lacy fucking dress and all, but she’s been thinking about things like our future. Where we’re gonna live. What I’m gonna do instead of travelling. Not planning it for me, but giving me options that work with her plan.”

“And?” Roy prompts. He’d always thought that Ed would end up with his childhood friend. During the whole homunculus debacle, Ed had been backwards and forwards to see her every few weeks, it had felt like. Roy could remember Hawkeye coming in to tell him about Ed’s blushes at the mere idea of a relationship, and Roy had laughed at the thought of puberty finally catching up with Edward Elric.

“I don’t know. What if it’s a mistake?” Ed takes a big gulp of his drink.

“I know you care about her.”

“I care about lots of people. Doesn’t mean I oughta marry ‘em all.”

Roy sighs. “Are you attracted to her?”

Ed snorts and gestures widely, the whiskey sloshing in the glass as he waves it out to the side. “Of course,” he scoffs. “I’m not the one who was blind, Mustang.”

Roy narrows his eyes. Which can see perfectly well now. “Then what’s stopping you from trying it out?”

“She’s one of my best friends. Jumping straight into marriage probably isn’t the best idea, right?”

It’s not like Roy’s the best one to ask for long-term relationship advice, but if it’s dating advice that Ed’s after, Roy can give it a shot. “There’s such a thing as dating, Fullmetal. Wooing.”

Ed’s face twists at the last word, which Roy fully intended. “Yeah, cos I’m great at that kind of thing.”

“I’m not going to assume what you’ve been up to since I last saw you,” Roy says with a shrug.

“And Winry’s decided that if we’re gonna get married, then we can wait till then to have sex.” Ed scowls again. “Which, sure, fine, if that’s what you want, but I know she’s had sex with some guys in Rush Valley. And what if we’re shit at sex together?”

Giving sex counselling to a man fourteen years his junior who was rewriting the laws of alchemy as a teenager was not in Roy’s plan for the evening. He’s going to need another drink. “In my experience,” he says, standing and heading for the drinks cabinet, “there’s no sexual problem that can’t be worked through.”

“Mm.”

“What does Alphonse think?” Roy says, looking over at Ed’s profile in the flickering light.

Ed shakes his head. “I haven’t told him about it. Not yet. He’s still out west, and it’s not really the kind of thing you can really talk about over the phone, you know? Plus, I don’t want to think about Al and sex in the same sentence.” He downs the rest of his drink, and shakes the glass at Roy. “More, please.”

Roy obliges, pouring the whiskey into the glass and taking the bottle back to his chair. “And that’s why you came to see me instead? Not to reminisce about battles past, but so I can give you some advice?”

“This is where I’m meant to joke about how many women you’ve slept with, right?” Ed takes a swig and smacks his lips. “I know most of that was just you hiding your spy network. Hawkeye told me all about it.”

“Remind me to demote her in the morning,” Roy says. “Lies and vile slander. I’ll have you know that while my reputation may have been exaggerated for political effect, it’s also entirely well earned.”

Ed laughs. “How many drinks did you have before I got here? It’s a work night, Mustang. Slow down.”

“Welcome to the advantage of being in command that you never thought about when you were a teenager. You can get away with the occasional day of being hungover, so long as you cultivate an air of dignity.”

Ed leans forward, resting his arms on his knees and his eyes twinkling in the firelight. “So all those times you were stony faced and staring majestically down at the parade ground, that wasn’t you being an asshole planning world domination, it was just a hangover?”

“Well,” Roy says into his glass, wondering just how honest he should be, “sometimes. Once or twice, when I was younger.” Not after he’d learnt about the homunculi. He hadn’t wanted to give them any more advantages.

“That’s why you used to steeple your fingers like that, wasn’t it?” Ed sounds delighted. “You were trying not to throw up on all your precious paperwork.”

“Why, Fullmetal,” Roy drawls, “I didn’t know you even knew what paperwork was. You must have been holding back on me all those years.”

“I didn’t want you to get too comfortable, Mustang.” Ed smirks at him from behind the crystal as he takes another sip. “I always like keeping you on your toes.”

For a moment, Roy feels warm in his chest. But then he crushes that feeling down, kneels and picks up the poker to stir the logs back into roaring life. Ed came here to talk about his newfound engagement, not to flirt. They’re just slipping back into the old banter, and Roy’s putting more intention behind Ed’s words than is actually there just because he’s a lonely old man with a beautiful genius sitting on his couch.

“I hope Miss Rockbell knows what she’s getting herself into,” Roy says.

Ed sighs. When Roy looks back at him, he’s rolling the glass between his hands. “I don’t know. I mean, it’s not just the sex, but that’s important, isn’t it?”

“I really don’t know if I’m the right person to be talking to about this.” Roy considers getting back up into his chair, but at this point, leaning back and gazing up at Ed’s face seems about all he can deal with.

“We can talk about this shit. I’m not a kid, and you’re not my superior anymore, Mustang.”

Roy’s not sure if he was ever Ed’s superior in anything but name. And height. “Fine.” He waves a hand. “Talk to me about your sex woes.”

Ed laughs, throwing his head back. “OK,” he says, sobering up and smiling down at Roy. “So, yes, I kind of want more sex before I say for definite that I’m done with everyone else for the rest of my life. But also… y’know, it’s Winry. She’s fucking beautiful. But it’s weird. When I was a kid, I never thought about her like that. She was just like my sister, you know?” Ed shrugs. “Hell, it wasn’t till the homunculi shit happened and they used her as a hostage that I even considered it.”

Roy smiles and looks back into the flames. “I was always grateful that you never seemed to discover your hormones while under my command. I spent years terrified that you’d suddenly need me to give you the sex talk.”

Ed coughs, seemingly choking on the whiskey. “You think I didn’t… Fuck, Mustang. You know what my sexual awakening was, right?”

When Roy looks back at Ed, Ed’s leaning forward with his eyes wide. The whiskey doesn’t seem to be relaxing him - if anything, Ed looks more tense and wound up than ever. “No,” Roy says. “No matter what you might have believed as a teenager, I’ve never been able to know everything about you.”

“Huh. Maybe I didn’t need to spend all those years worrying that I’d slip up and make things awkward.” Ed looks down at the glass in his hand and knocks back what’s left. “Fuck it, may as well. I didn’t really think about sex for ages. There was always more important stuff to do. Sex was just something I’d read about in a book. It wasn’t like it could be useful. I couldn’t get Al’s body back by fucking someone. And then I fought you for my assessment.”

It’s Roy’s turn to choke. He manages to avoid spraying his drink across the carpet, but it’s a close thing. He remembers that fight. He’s half sure Bradley encouraged it just to evaluate them as potential sacrifices. “You were twelve!” He can still remember Ed at that age, long golden hair in a swinging braid, a small bundle of barely contained rage. “I beat you.”

Ed frowns at Roy. “I was fourteen, it was a draw, and I was about to stab you, so fuck off.” He shakes his head and looks back at the flames. “Anyway, that night, I dreamt about you and woke up with sticky sheets. I shared a room with my brother who couldn’t sleep, remember, so fuck knows what he thought. It wasn’t like I even knew what sex was, not properly, but apparently all my subconscious wanted was you. And it kept happening. I was so fucking pissed off. Every time you smirked, or ran your fingers through your hair, I’d wake up the next day and have to hide my laundry from Al.”

Roy ought to stop everything now and go to bed. Alone, he tells himself quickly, before he can start imagining Ed spread across his sheets. He knows that he’s tipsy, and Ed’s just downed two generous glasses in quick succession. “Every man has wet dreams at some point, Edward,” he says.

Ed nods. “But most people don’t dream about one person, over and over, almost exclusively.” He lifts the empty glass to his mouth and tilts it back. There’s not a single drop left in it, though, so instead his tongue darts out to lick a quick stripe along the rim. It’s a cliché, and Roy doesn’t think Ed’s doing it deliberately, but even though he hates himself for it, he can’t resist the urge to lick his own lips. He gets off the floor and into the armchair, just to put that little bit more distance between them.

“I’m flattered,” Roy says, voice surprisingly steady. “I never knew I was such an integral part of your teenage psyche.”

“Apparently not.” Ed stretches, turning so that he’s facing Roy more than the fire. He’s looking at Roy through half-open eyes. For the first time, Roy regrets starting the fire. If he’d turned on all the electric lights, then Ed wouldn’t be able to hide his expression in the shadows.

“Why are you really here, Edward?”

Ed places the glass down on the floor, and then slinks off the sofa and onto his knees. “You want the truth, Mustang?”

It’s like something ripped from Roy’s deeply repressed subconscious. Ed kneeling, his head slightly bowed so that while his face is in shadow, his hair is shining in the firelight. Roy’s never allowed himself to think about Ed in this way, even though he’s had similar dreams to Ed’s. He can’t even bring himself to believe it now. Why would Ed show up on his doorstep, just to drink some of his whiskey and seduce him?

“You’re engaged, Ed,” Roy manages to say. “You’re in love with Winry.”

Ed crawls forward, and Roy can only stare. He feels glued to his seat. If he was any kind of decent human being, he’d get up now and leave. But he can’t move an inch. “I haven’t been able to think about anything else but this for the last few years, Mustang.” He stops at Roy’s feet and lays a hand on Roy’s knee. It’s about all Roy can do to keep from shuddering.

“Edward,” Roy says, and there’s a desperate note that he can hear in his own voice, “I don’t know what kind of man you think I am.”

Ed tips his head up so that he’s gazing into Roy’s eyes. “A good one.”

“Not good enough for this.” He covers Ed’s hand with his own before it can move any further up his thigh. “If you don’t stop now, I’m not going to be able to say no.”

Ed nods. “Maybe that’s why I came here. I don’t want you to say no. Maybe that’s selfish, but fuck it. I don’t care.”

Roy crushes his free hand into a fist. If he gives in to the impulse to tangle it in Ed’s hair, he won’t be able to stop from crushing their lips together. “And what if I didn’t let you in? Would you have found someone else for this pre-wedding fling?”

Ed frowns. “Don’t be such a bastard, Mustang. This isn’t just an ‘I wonder what it would be like to have sex with a guy’ thing. I’ve done that. This is all about you.” He stands, then, pulling his hand away. “If you want me to leave, though, I can.”

Roy grabs at him without thinking. “Don’t.” And then he gasps when he realises that he’s managed to grab onto Ed’s right wrist. He can’t help rubbing his thumb along the inside of Ed’s forearm, touching the flesh that hadn’t existed for all those years. “What do you want from me?” Roy asks, and that can’t be his voice, because it’s already far too broken and all he’s done is touch Ed once.

Ed shudders under his fingers. “I want you.” And then he bends down and kisses Roy, and it’s all Roy can do to hold on. Ed kisses like he used to perform alchemy, full throttle and without any shades of subtlety. They’re only touching at two points - their lips and Roy’s grip around Ed’s arm - but Roy is already trembling, and Ed’s moaning into his mouth.

Ed pulls away enough to start talking against Roy’s lips, his hands roving up and down Roy’s neck and chest and arms as if they can’t stop moving. “Naked, Mustang, now.” But even as he says it, he doesn’t let go. He pulls Roy with him, stumbling back across the room, spinning them around so that he can push Roy down onto the sofa. And then he crawls into Roy’s laps, straddling him with a leg either side of Roy’s hips. Even though he told Roy to get naked, he won’t move away long enough for Roy to take any of his clothes off; his hands won’t stop moving, touching and caressing Roy’s neck, shoulders, chest, anything he can get his hands on while he’s kissing Roy and grinding down against his erection.

If he’d ever allowed himself to think about this happening, Roy would have imagined their positions reversed. Ed was so beautiful, precious, and Roy would spend hours worshipping every single inch of skin on Ed’s body. But instead it’s Ed who’s running his eyes and hands and lips over Roy’s skin as if he’s trying to learn it by memory so he can reconstruct it with a transmutation circle.

And that’s pretty much enough to have Roy feeling like he’s about to come in his underwear, something he hasn’t done since he was a virginal teenager. It’s not helped by Ed slipping one hand between them to undo Roy’s uniform trousers with slightly fumbling fingers – and why hadn’t Roy changed out of them the instant he’d come home tonight? Because now he’s never going to be able to put them on without the sense memory of the material rubbing against his cock as Ed wraps his fingers around him and starts to jerk him off with more passion than finesse, true, but all the more heart-stopping for that.

Roy knows he should be doing more than just surrendering his body up to Ed’s hands and lips, but it’s difficult when he’s this overwhelmed by sensation. He can feel Ed’s flesh leg pressing into him on one side, the slightly more careful distance of the automail on the other, Ed’s pulse thundering beneath Roy’s hand on his neck, the raised skin of scars on Ed’s spine where Roy’s slipped his other hand underneath Ed’s shirt to caress his skin. He has to see Ed topless before this ends, because there’s no guarantee that this is anything other than an alcohol-induced dream, and it will probably all vanish as soon as Ed comes to his senses. So Roy starts to undo Ed’s shirt one-handed, unwilling to lose contact with him for long enough to use both hands.

As soon as the shirt’s open, Roy pulls away to stare at Ed’s chest, the tan skin occasionally criss-crossed by scars Roy remembers and ones he has no idea about. The shirt’s covering up Ed’s shoulder, but there’s still scars peeking out, the remnants of Ed’s childhood mistakes. Those are the ones that Roy bows his head to, tracing their path with his tongue. Ed shudders against him, his hand juddering.

“Fuck,” Ed gasps.

The feeling of Ed panting into his ear, the weight of him on his lap, and the pressure of his hand are all overwhelming.

“Ed, I can’t…” Roy kisses Ed’s face, every scrap of skin he can reach. “It’s too much.”

Ed pulls back slightly, resting his spare hand against Roy’s face. “Go on, Mustang. I want to watch you.”

And that’s about all Roy can take - he can’t look at Ed while he’s giving Roy his full attention, so he closes his eyes, focuses on Ed’s touch and lets himself go, thrusting up into Ed’s hand as much as he can with Ed sitting on his legs. And then he can’t hold back any longer; he’s coming all over Ed’s stomach with a cry. Ed leans forward and swallows the sound with his lips.

It takes a minute of Roy shaking and panting before he can bring himself to open his eyes. Ed’s just been sitting still that entire time, hasn’t made a move to get himself away from Roy. But as soon as he sees that Roy’s looking at him, he brings his hand to his lips and licks it clean. The sight of Ed’s fingers entering his mouth is enough to have Roy’s cock giving a spirited attempt at a twitch. But vanity aside, Roy’s too old to get it up again quite so soon. So he wriggles until Ed gets the hint and clambers off to sit next to him. Before Ed has a chance to make any more movements, Roy falls from the sofa into a boneless kneeling position, tugging at Ed so that he can open Ed’s trousers and get his mouth on Ed’s cock.

Roy might have come far too soon, but he can make it worth Ed’s while with a fantastic blowjob. Modesty is for the insecure - Roy knows that this is the one thing he can do even while most of him wants to collapse into a sated heap. He pulls Ed’s trousers down to his ankles, and then leans in to swallow Ed’s cock. Ed bucks up at the first touch, and as Roy reaches up to touch, he finds that Ed’s not going to take much longer than Roy himself did. Roy wants to stretch this out, make this moment last for as long as possible, but that’s not going to happen. Ed’s breath is coming hard and fast as Roy licks and sucks, savouring the flavour beneath his tongue. 

“Roy,” Ed gasps. It might be the first time, Roy thinks, that Ed’s ever used his real name, and hearing it in this context makes Roy’s chest tighten. He’s never going to be able to forget it and it’s going to haunt his dreams, but it’s not like Roy can regret anything that’s happened. He just swallows as Ed thrusts up with a strangled cry.

He pulls off and rests his head on Ed’s flesh knee, gazing up at Ed as he pants, his hands releasing from where they’d been clutching at the sofa cushions. Somehow, throughout all of that, Ed’s hair had pretty much stayed in its ponytail. There’s just a couple of stray strands hanging loose around his face. Roy gives into temptation and reaches up to touch them, twisting it around his fingers.

“Don’t tell me you have a fixation on the hair too,” Ed says quietly. But he doesn’t move away. “There’s a lot of strange assholes out there who want to do weird shit to my hair.”

“I’ve wanted to touch it for years,” Roy murmurs. “Does wanting to stick my face deep into your hair and inhale your scent count as ‘weird shit’?”

Ed shoves at his shoulder gently. “Fuck you. Anyway, it should be your hair that everyone obsesses over. It constantly looks like you’ve just been fucked.”

Roy raises an eyebrow. “What makes you think that’s not the reason my hair looks this way all the time?”

“Is there something you want to tell me about you and Havoc?”

Roy pauses. “I was sure you were going to say Hawkeye.”

“Nah,” Ed says with a yawn. “She’s too good for you, and you know it.”

“Mm,” Roy hums in agreement and closes his eyes.

“No, no.” Ed prods him in the nose, and pushes himself off the sofa, pulling his trousers back up. “You can’t sleep down there, Mustang. You’ll be bitching all of tomorrow about how bad your back hurts.”

Roy yawns. “So considerate.” He takes the hand that Ed offers him and levers himself upright, flinching at that grind of his joints again. His body’s already starting to stiffen up. The sofa hasn’t ever been the best place for sex, and definitely not since he raced past the age of thirty. He’s going to regret it in the morning. 

“So, Mustang,” Ed says quietly, “is this where I finally get to see your bed?” 

Ed almost looks unsure of himself. It’s a strange look for his face, and it makes something clench in Roy’s chest. Pulling Ed in for a brief kiss is almost a thoughtless effort to remove it, but the small smirk Ed gives him is worth it. “Come on, Ed.” 

It’s walking up the stairs that makes Roy start to doubt himself. Ed’s following behind him, but every single step is like a resounding clang in his head pointing out how much of a mistake this is. What the hell is he doing? Ed’s only here because he’s scared of marriage. He’s a young man who had to grow up far too quickly - of course he doesn’t want to settle down immediately. And what’s Roy going to do? Let Ed do whatever he wants, apparently. 

‘You’re a weak, pathetic old man,’ he thinks bitterly. What he should do is show Ed to the bedroom and then retreat downstairs to sleep on the sofa and destroy all of his joints. Sweep this under the rug. Let it just be a single incident, a brief interlude before Ed commits to the love of his life.

But any thoughts of that are ruined when Ed shrugs out of his shirt and falls onto the bed.

No matter what Ed may think, Roy knows he’s never been a good man.

**Author's Note:**

> Not included in this fic: another couple of thousand words of dialogue in the bedroom where I'm really just working out my own issues.


End file.
